After lunch, the three fillies opened the barn doors wide, and Sweetie Belle (who had the keys) stepped forward towards the door. With a boost from Apple Bloom, she gripped the door handle and opened it. The three fillies stepped inside. Sweetie Belle was a bit baffled by the assortment of levers and switches around them, but Apple Bloom and Scootaloo knew what they were all for.
“Sweetie Belle, I need you to reach the pedal on the right hand side down there,” Apple Bloom ordered, taking charge. “Scootaloo, keep an eye on the gauges to make sure they work.
With everyone in position, Apple Bloom pushed the key into the ignition and turned it. There was a brief flutter sound and then utter silence.
“It didn’t work!” Sweetie Belle pouted.
“Not so fast, crusaders,” Scootaloo replied as she pulled the hood lever, disappointed that her best friends would give up on something so easily. “We forgot to pour the gas in the tank, and moreover, I should check the clamp on the alternator wire and the battery terminals to be sure that they’re fastened properly.”
The trio hopped out of the car, and set to work. Scootaloo opened the hood and felt the battery terminals. Yep, they were a little wiggly, and so was the alternator wire. She grabbed a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, and tightened up the battery terminal nuts. Then she reached down to the starter motor and turned the screw that held the wire in place a little more until it was firm.
Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had finished pumping fuel into the car’s tank.
“You done?” Scootaloo called out, shutting the hood and walking around to the driver’s side.
“Yep!” Sweetie Belle replied, wiping excess fuel off the siphon pump’s tip and securely shutting the tank’s valves. Apple Bloom screwed the car’s filler cap back on and shut the lid. The two opened the passenger door and hopped in, taking their positions once more.
“Ready?” Apple Bloom said, trying to hold back her excitement and anticipation.
“Ready!” Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo replied.
Taking a deep breath and a little prayer, Apple Bloom gripped the key, pushed it into the slot, and turned it. There was a brief fluttering sound as before, but this time it was followed by a low roar.
“Gently press it, Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom called out.
Sweetie Belle gave a little push on the gas pedal, and the engine came alive with a rumble and a hum. The gauges lit up, indicating that they were taking in the data from the turbo and the sensors attached to the engine.
“IT WORKED! YAY!” the Cutie Mark Crusaders yelled in joy, jumping up and down on the car seats.
But after just a few seconds the engine came to a halt.
“I forgot to engage the fuel pump, so only a bit of fuel came through,” Scootaloo explained. She flicked a switch on the center console and squeezed a button a couple of times.
“Wait for a moment,” she ordered.
“Now start it,” she then said after thirty seconds had passed.
Apple Bloom pushed the key into the hole and turned it while Sweetie Belle pushed the gas pedal a little to get the flywheel spinning a bit more. The engine roared to life once more, but stayed on.
“What do think, crusaders?” Sweetie Belle said, crawling out from the pedal area. “Was this effort worth it or what?”
“It definitely was!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo replied joyfully. “But, how will we reach the pedals? Sunset Shimmer said in one of her letters that you have to hold the steering wheel, touch the pedals, and the central lever all at the same time, not to mention watching the gauges.”
“We’ll attach an extension to the pedals so you can reach them,” Apple Bloom told Scootaloo.
“I’ll get some pillows from my bedroom so you can see ahead,” Sweetie Belle suggested.
Scootaloo patiently waited in the car while Apple Bloom made three dumbbell-shaped contraptions out of wood. They had straps on one end so they could be attached to the pedals, and Scootaloo could push on them from the other end like the pedal itself. In a sense, they were pedal extensions.
Sweetie Belle soon came back with a wagon-ful of colorful pillows.
“That’s…quite a lot,” Scootaloo said, pulling a skeptical face.
“You’ll see,” Sweetie Belle replied in a sneaky-type voice. “Let’s load them in.”
After a couple of pillows had been placed on the driver’s seat, Scootaloo instantly noticed the difference. Now she could hold the steering wheel properly, see out of the windshield clearly, and reach the gear lever.
Apple Bloom then turned up, with her wooden “dumbbells”.
“You’ll see once they’re in,” she said with a snicker.
With help from Sweetie Belle, she firmly attached the straps on one end to each of the pedals, as well as holding them to the dashboard’s underside with rope and tape to stop them falling over. Scootaloo was now in legs’ reach of the other end, and she could now press each pedal with ease.
“Ready for a drive?” Scootaloo suggested, revving the engine.
“Um, sure,” Sweetie Belle replied, hopping into the front seat. Apple Bloom sat in the back.
With seatbelts fastened, Scootaloo remembered the letter from Sunset Shimmer.
“Left hoof on the clutch, ta ta and ta, na na and…” she repeatedly whispered to herself. “Okay, Crusaders, here we go.”
Scootaloo pushed the clutch down, moved the gear stick into first gear, let go of the clutch, and gently eased on the gas. The car began to move forward smoothly.
“This is amazing!” Sweetie Belle whooped.
“Turning right now, towards the exit. We’re heading for the country roads, to see how this machine will perform.”
As the trio left the farm, Scootaloo was starting to get the hang of the gears, and learned to react quickly. Sweetie Belle also reminded her of a few more pointers.
“When you see the light on the gauge cluster, you need to shift, and make sure you downshift at lower revs, or you’ll lose control.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Scootaloo replied. “By the way, I set the turbo to low, which is 9 PSI. The higher it is the faster the car will go. Let’s test it out.”
Scootaloo made sure the road was clear, and smoothly pressed the gas until the engine suddenly sounded like it was screaming. The VTEC had kicked in, knocking the Crusaders back in their seats. The feel of the raw power was almost overwhelming, and it became even stronger as the turbo then arrived after spooling up. The revs shot up to 9900 rpm.
“Shift!” Sweetie Belle yelled over the noise, noticing the light on the dashboard turn on.
Scootaloo hit the clutch, shifted into third gear, and quickly pressed the gas again. “Whoooooo!” Apple Bloom squealed with joy as the needle passed the 100 km/h mark. Scootaloo shifted again and the turbo kicked in, bringing the revs up to 9000 rpm. The Honda was flying at more than seventy miles an hour down the country road, and the grassland seemed to just be a total blur.
“Corner coming up!” Scootaloo announced, lowering the revs, then downshifting to third, then second. Their speed was now just at 70 km/h, which Sweetie Belle still found dangerously fast.
“Slow down!” she pleaded.
“We’re only at 70 kilometers an hour,” Scootaloo said with a slight chuckle. “But I’ll slow down a bit more.”
Scootaloo slowed to 50 kilometers an hour, and smoothly turned through the corner. Ahead lay a bridge that crossed the Ghastly Gorge.
Before the other two could stop her, Scootaloo hit the gas hard again, bringing up the speed as quickly as the VTEC would allow. The turbo kicked in as the bridge’s crest came into view, and Sweetie Belle gasped in fright.
The Honda’s wheels hit the bridge’s edge, and it went flying over the bridge’s crest, landing with a hard thunk and a brief bounce on the other side.
“Nice moves, kid!” a voice rang out of nowhere. Apple Bloom’s head span around, looking for any sign of movement or color. Then she saw it: Rainbow Dash, flying above the car.
Rainbow Dash thinks I’ve got…nice moves! Scootaloo thought happily to herself, almost forgetting that she was still driving a rare car travelling at over 100 km/h.
“SCOOTS!” Apple Bloom yelled from the backseat.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Scootaloo replied, blushing. She gripped the steering wheel and downshifted, lowering the speed down once more.
Scootaloo wanted to test the Honda on a higher boost setting, but Sweetie Belle firmly said no. After a few handling test runs near Appleloosa, it was time to return to Sweet Apple Acres.
Once again, Scootaloo opened the taps, bringing the car up to 130 km/h on the country roads before slowing down once more. Finally they turned into the narrow dirt lane that led to the entrance of Sweet Apple Acres, with mixed feelings. Sweetie Belle enjoyed the ride comfort, Apple Bloom liked the handling, and Scootaloo liked the brutal acceleration and the impressive speed. In one of the fields, Applejack was busy rounding up some cattle, but she had to do it with only two other ponies, as Big Macintosh was busy with the apple trees.
“Maybe we can help,” Apple Bloom suggested. Being raised on the farm, she knew the technics and movements of herding livestock.
“Applejack!” Scootaloo called out, winding down the window. “We can help!”
“I’ll go to the rear!” Applejack yelled back. “You take the right-hand flank!”
“Got it!” Scootaloo replied, shifting and zooming towards the midpoint of the herd on the right side, remembering to close the window.
“This is where the Honda suddenly comes alive,” Scootaloo told her fellow Crusaders, spinning the steering wheel so the car slid sideways a little, then she gave it gas. The car began to ease back into line, and as it did so, it veered to the left slightly, forcing the cattle to move left as well.
“Yee-haw! There ya go,” Apple Bloom cheered from the back seat.
Soon the cattle began to move properly in line towards the large pen near the northeast side of the farm.
Good work, Crusaders, Applejack thought with a smile under her breath as she drove the cattle forwards along with another pony.
At the pen, several other ponies had kept the gates wide open, and Scootaloo yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, pulled the handbrake, spun the wheel in the other direction, and zoomed away from the fence, since the herd was now channeling into a funnel shape into the pen. It was time to join Applejack in driving the herd from the rear.
“For a front wheel-drive car, this handles quite well,” Sweetie Belle admitted.
At last, all the cows were safely in the pen. Apple Bloom hopped out to help close the gates as the dust settled. Scootaloo gave the engine a few brief revs as a sign of triumph.
“That was amazing, sugarcube!” Applejack bellowed with joy.
“It sure was!” Apple Bloom replied, hugging her big sister with liquid pride.
Out of nowhere, Rainbow Dash arrived, along with a few members of the Apple Family that had been helping Applejack with herding the cattle.
“That was…so awesome!” Rainbow Dash declared, ruffling Scootaloo’s mane.
Members of the Apple family arrived, firing questions left and right so quickly that Scootaloo couldn’t even answer them all.
“How fast is it?”
“Can it spin and speed instantly?”
“Where did you get it?”
“Can I drive it?”
Rainbow Dash saved her by clearing away the crowd.
“No questions, please,” she said firmly, pushing her way to the driver’s side window, blocking the Apple Family from asking Scootaloo anything.
With the job done, Scootaloo drove the Honda back to the barn, giving Apple Bloom and her big sister a lift on the way. Rainbow Dash was just happy that her little “sister” had accomplished an awesome feat that no pony had been able to achieve before.